Trouble at My Alma Mater – Walla Walla University

Over the last few weeks I’ve been following events at my undergraduate alma mater, Walla Walla University, largely via the Spectrum Magazine blog, starting with the news that Pastor Alex Bryan of the Walla Walla University Church had been recommended as president by a search committee. Now it has been a number of years since I was a student at WWU and I don’t know the players personally. But as the story developed (you can follow it by using the search box at the link shown above and searching for either Bryan or McVay), various groups got together to campaign against Dr. Bryan, and the board, while considering him sound enough theologically to pastor the university church, decided they didn’t want him as president of the university.

If I had been leaving the SDA church for personal reasons, this would have been one of them, “this” being the tendency of various small groups to get together to guarantee the total orthodoxy of all selections. My lifelong missionary parents even saw their membership blocked at a local SDA church.

But wait a minute … I said “if”.

The reason I bring this story up is as the backdrop for saying quite clearly: If you’re thinking of leaving your church for personal reasons (solely or even primarily), don’t!

If I had left the SDA church for personal reasons, I would long since have found an equal number of reasons for leaving every church in which I have held membership since. The specific issues are different, but human nature remains the same. It is so easy to start a rumor campaign. One doesn’t even have to plan it. But when you add a little fear, such as people thinking “maybe our church won’t be the same as it always was,” and you can have a full campaign going before you know it. Fight it where you are, because it may well happen elsewhere.

Perhaps this is why gossip is considered such a serious sin in Scripture. Paul often includes it with his “sin lists.” It’s right there in Romans 1:28-32, but for some reason I’ve never heard a sermon preached from that passage that concentrated on gossip as a sin. If we have any sin in the church that we refuse to give up and that we tolerate openly in contradiction to Scripture, I’d suggest gossip for the title. And just because gossip is spread through Facebook groups or on Twitter doesn’t make it any less gossip.

But this is the other side of the coin. I said don’t leave your church if your reasons are personal, including this one. I’d suggest that one’s choice of a church home should be based on where you can carry out your call to ministry as a member of the body of Christ. All of us are called to ministry, and our faith community should be helping us carry out that call. You may have to leave a more gossipy church for a less gossipy one, assuming you can find one. But consider that God may be calling you to stay where you are and try to make things better.

I have doctrinal disagreements with the SDA church that make it impossible for me to be a member. But I continue to be a member of a very imperfect church, just an imperfect church where God is working through the efforts of many imperfect people–like me.

If we’d think more about service and less about our own comfort and safety, I think things would go much better.